The RC Scales formed the basis of the third major revision of the test, the MMPI-2-Restructured Form (MMPI-2-RF), published in the latter half of 2008. These and other issues (e.g., excessive scale heterogeneity, noncontributing items) were the focus of a new set of scales, the Restructured Clinical Scales (RC Scales), published in monograph form in 2003. This is related to problems with excessive item overlap among the Clinical Scales, and the failure to recognize and deal effectively with a broad “common factor” of psychopathology that was measured to varying degrees by all ten scales. Very briefly, the original Clinical Scales suffered from excessively high cross-scale correlations, which lowered discriminant validity.
STANFORD MMPI TEST PROFESSIONAL
While this decision by the Restandardization Committee did assure continuity of the primary scales and thus widespread acceptance by the professional community in a short time, it also perpetuated significant psychometric problems in the Clinical Scales that were of increasing concern to both scholars and practitioners. Restandardization and item-level improvements were achieved, but the ten Clinical Scales were left almost entirely unaltered.
Concerns about outdated and unrepresentative norms and about obsolete item content prompted a major revision of the test, a ten-year project culminating in 1989 with the MMPI-2. By the 1970s, comprehensive bibliographies included between 5,000 and 6,000 published articles, and today, including all versions, the number approaches 15,000. Finally, the MMPI was noted for its inclusion of explicit measures of test-taking attitude, inherent in the test itself (e.g., the “Lie scale”). Second, the MMPI was designed from the outset to be a broad-band measure covering all major psychopathological syndromes recognized in that time period, in contrast to existing instruments that tended to focus narrowly on certain issues (e.g., neurosis). The MMPI was the first to be developed using empirical keying and was far more effective as a result, a fact that was evident very early. First, extant personality tests of that time were rationally rather than empirically derived. The MMPI was a revolutionary assessment device in a number of key ways. The first formal publication was in 1940. Hathaway had begun active work on test development in the mid- to late 1930s, and the test was always used clinically even as it evolved. The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) is the most widely used and widely researched objective measure of psychopathology in history, a status it has held throughout its more than seventy-year existence.